On the anniversary of the abdication

Townes-Thomas

Stale rituals

that day

when the big president is

raised

from his nursing

bed.   sought

out a cemetery

where a first-pod

had fallen. Finding

a crater

among gravestones

pre-dating the great

signing-over, I chanted

a homemade psalm

in the fog –

a prayer to counter

the unsung song

of the age.

Weak lament rose

and filled the crater

for a while, seeming –

once sung –

to settle   n

the moss and soil

as if

scanned

and disassembled.

In such silence

had the first-pods

deciphered prophecy

from garbled

talk-shows and newscasts

hurled nightly

into the void

by our satellites.

Now a wordless alien canticle

shows to synapses

the expanse

of space,

screaming.

And earth

sings

eternal and forever

crumbling in cemetery

mist.